Of Doves and Crows
by 411-Get-A-Life
Summary: You don't know what happens next, and whether you want it to be good or bad is your choice. But we didn't choose, we went with it.   Because life goes on, and so does death. Implied 2DXNoodle but you can ignore if you want.
1. Chapter 1

I looked around anxiously from my chair, right in the very back of the room. In perfect view of every being around me. Most of them, I would rather not look at. But I was forced to, everyday. Silently counting when she would return, but I was never sure. I was always afraid that one day, she would said away forever. Whether she wanted to or not.

I was in an especially good mood today. For, if my days were right, she would float by. And I would get that same spark of hope that maybe today I could be like her, and escape.

Of course, even though her island was a symbol of freedom, she was still all alone. And that was just as much of a prison as it would be if she were here with us at the Feel Good Inc. tower. I slumped back into my chair, closing my eyes. I tried to focus on breathing, and not the sounds of moans and smells of smoke. My eyes ached, which I didn't know was possible. My throat felt dry and sore, after countless times of singing that song and breathing in the fumes. Then, the familiar music came on, that we were forced to play. I took a deep breath, almost coughing but stopped myself. If we messed up the song, we were punished.

I got up from my chair and walked toward the window, I heard my voice echo through the room, but I felt like I wasn't singing it at all. The chorus started and my tone became lighter. Maybe I would get to see her today.

I caught glimpses of the windmill through the clouds, but it didn't emerge. I gave up, knowing it wouldn't come back around a second time. I dropped my head and waited for the rap. When the rap did come, I didn't know how. But I would always dance. Like they were controlling me, the whole thing made me nauseous. Spinning around and looking at those dizzying images on the screens, not to mention the whole place smelled like stale beer. I stepped backwards until I was in front of the window.

Then, I heard a large crack behind me, and the sound of wind. I turned around quickly, coming face to face with her. Noodle.

Her knuckles were bleeding, so I could have only guessed she punched through the window. She was standing at the tip of her island with her head down. She then looked up at me and smiled. Despite the commotion we were probably causing, nobody's head turned, De La Soul didn't stop. Noodle held out her hand, and I took it gratefully.

I was free. Of all the people she could have saved, she saved me. She still held my hand as she brought me to the edge of the island, where she always sat when she played the solo. The windmill turned around the Feel Good Inc tower, almost like we were taunting everybody. It was so great to finally be able to breath normally and to feel sun and grass and to finally sit next to her. She played her solo, I sang along. Both of us swinging our legs, like we didn't care if we fell.

After the song ended, Noodle set her guitar down. We didn't say anything, we didn't know what to say. The silence was long, but comfortable. "Thank you." I whispered. Her head turned, "Your welcome." she said. It sounded so good to hear her voice again. I pulled her into a hug, I could tell she was surprised, but she still hugged me back. "I missed you so much."

For hours we would talk and laugh and play music. When we got bored we played tag, which was very dangerous and always ended up in one of us jumping onto each other. The last thing I remember was falling asleep next to her.

I didn't wake up peacefully. I woke up to helicopters. Noodle and I both stared at them squinting our eyes. They were the same helicopters that circled around the Feel Good Inc tower, making sure nobody escaped. The landed right in the middle of the island, one of the doors opened and a skinny man with a gas mask stepped out. I wondered if they would make me go back to the tower. The man slowly walked towards us, Noodle never said a word. But I could see the fear in her eyes. The man took hold of my shoulders and dragged me back to the helicopters. I kicked and struggled, which only bent my arms in painful angles. Noodle tried to stop them, but the man from the other helicopter held her back.

Noodle was left alone on the island, and I was taken away. I felt tears sliding down my face as the island faded into the distance. I don't know what did it, maybe being taken away from her, after I just got her back, I don't know what did it, but something inside me sparked.

I silently managed my skinny wrists out of the too big cuffs. The man with the gas mask didn't notice as I pulled on a parachute, but he did notice when I opened the door. Before he could stop me, I jumped.

Have you ever bungee jumped or sky dived? Neither have I. But before you jump, your whole body's telling you not to, because there's nothing to catch you. Like a defense system. And when you do jump, its just like a roller coaster, except better, because it's still very possible that I could die.

I pulled the drawstring on my parachute and floated the rest of the way. Soon I landed next to a canyon. I looked up and tried to find Noodle's island. Fortunately, I did. Unfortunately, both the helicopters were attacking it.

I didn't know what to do. There was nothing I _could _do. It all felt wrong, that they were punishing her for trying to save me. And what's worse was I was forced to watch, no matter how hard I tried to look away, I watched. I could just barely see Noodle's figure run back into the windmill. Soon the island began it's plunge, into the canyon I was standing at the edge of.

Noodle, being the smart girl she was, jumped off the island. She had a parachute, which I only caught a faint glimpse of before she passed right in front of me. I did the only thing I wanted to do, I jumped in after her.

I wanted to be there when she died. I didn't want to lose her forever. I fell faster than she did, because I was going face first. Like a dive. I was able to reach her and I quickly wrapped my arms around her. I wouldn't do much to protect her, but at the moment I didn't care.

The whole thing was a blur, deploying the parachute, barely touching the canyon, and then we heard a bang, and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

It was like waking up from a dream. Literally, we just got up and brushed ourselves off. But something was different, and it really bothered me. In front of us was the crashed windmill, dust was swirling around from the impact, but none of it irritated my eyes. Although, I was a special case. But Noodle didn't seem to notice it either. Their was a faint ringing in our ears, which I expected was from the bomb they dropped on us.

I turned around and all my questions were answered. "Uh, Noodle? C-come look..." I said. She walked up beside me and gasped, we were face to face with our own bodies. We were dead.

I'm not going into all the graphic details of how our bodies looked, because I'm nice. But basically, I looked like I went through a lawn mower, or got blown up by a bomb. Which I had.

Noodle hung her head, and I heard her silent sobs. I reached my hand up, trying to comfort her, but she ran. She kept running through the canyon and I had no choice but to follow, I wasn't going to suffer death alone, and I wasn't going to let her either.

I chased her, thinking she would tire out, but she didn't. And neither did I. In fact, I didn't feel the need to breath anymore, but I just felt right. I noticed a couple other things about being dead. One, you couldn't really _feel_. By feel, I mean like the sun and stuff. But I guess that was also good, because I couldn't feel cold either. The sun was just a faint memory, and I never thought that I would get to squint up at the sun, and not feel its warmth.

I started to notice the area was changing. Changing a lot. The landscape was still very baron, but it just _felt_ different. Plus, it was dark, and there was no moon. I also noticed Noodle stopped running, when I ran into her. "W-where are we?" she chocked through sobs. We look out into the sky, but something was wrong. Weren't we in a canyon? So how come the sky stretched from horizon to horizon? I looked to my left and saw a huge amp system. It was so familiar, how could I have missed it? "Noodle? Where have I seen that before?" I pointed out in the distance. She sniffed and looked my way, then gasped. "2D, don't you remember? That's in the picture for the Every Planet We Reach Is Dead song...but it wasn't real..." she explained.

"So how did we get here then, if it wasn't real?" I asked.

Noodle wiped her eyes, "I-I don't know, I was just thinking about how I wished that I on my island, but then I thought it would be too horrible to see again, then I wished I was here, so I wouldn't have to look at the island, or my _body _anymore. And then, it all just changed."

We didn't know what to do, there was nothing _to _do. You know, after all this, I haven't gotten on migraine yet. I started thinking about everything we left behind, and I smiled. No more Murdoc, or late night gigs with all that screaming which made my headaches worse, and no more press or interviews and no more exhausting tours. But then I thought, no more horror movies or Russel or playing tag with the zombies at Kong or those rare occasions where we all hang out together, and had fun. Not as a band, but as a family. But I had Noodle, and I could go anywhere in the world I wanted to, without having to sing for anybody. Even though I think I'm just content right here.

Noodle was sitting at the top of that huge amp, though I'm not sure how she got up there. She held her guitar in her hand and she was looking into the distance. She looked down and smiled at me, and reached her hand out. Like magic, I was taking hold of her hand, almost 50 feet into the air. Amazing, we hadn't been here for maybe 15 minutes and she's already figured it all out.

Noodle and I swung our legs off the edge of the amp, just like we did with the island. Soon more amps appeared, and we played music. And we didn't stop.

Hours and hours of music, bass, violin, drums, whatever we didn't have we imagined. We didn't write any more songs, just played ones we knew. Because the songs just wouldn't be right if Murdoc wasn't there to tell us it was crap or Russel and Del help us create better lyrics and raps.

Noodle and I were on different amps now, and I don't know why. But I would squint my eyes over to Noodle, and I swear I would see tears. I kept playing, to keep her happy. After the hours, maybe days of playing, I thought that maybe she was playing to try to get somebody to hear us. To know we still existed. Or at least sort of existed. Maybe that was why she wanted so many amps.

No, Noodle has never cared about Gorillaz being big or anybody hearing Gorillaz before, and I don't think she cares now. Noodle had a deeper view on life, even for a 15 year old. So I had to really think about why she wanted to play so much.

While I played, images ran through the air. More like flashes or pictures. And if you blinked, you missed them. Some I recognized as Gorillaz or Kong or even screaming fans, that's when I recognized the reason she was playing. She wasn't trying to get somebody to hear us. She was making sure we didn't forget who we were.

As soon as I thought this, everything became clear. And I sang louder, and when we finished a song, I would start a song where Noodle sang. I didn't want her to forget herself, and I didn't want her to forget her own voice.

We played Every Planet We Reach Is Dead, probably for the 4th time. After my part to sing was over, and it went to the orchestra, I jumped down from my amp and silently crept up to Noodle's. She didn't notice me until the part with the piano solo. She turned around, in confusion. The whole song stopped and everything became dead silent. For a moment we just stared at each other. Then I asked, "Do you remember before we started any of the Feel Good Inc stuff? Before you got on your island? Remember what we planned?"

Noodle bit her bottom lip in thought, "...No." she mumbled. "You said we were going to the Maldives together, remember? You said, 'Don't worry, after this is all over, we'll go to the Maldives, just you and me.' Remember?" I said.

"Yes. I remember." she said finally. "So, lets go then." I said. She smiled, and I smiled back while taking her hand. We jumped off the amp and began walking. A slow walk, we had all the time in the world, and then some.


	3. Chapter 3

Soon the landscape turned back into grass, then sand. I never realized we were barefoot, but maybe I had decided to take my shoes off a few days ago. We didn't look behind us to see if the amps were still there, they didn't matter. We started walking along the beach somewhere in the Maldives. Everything felt different here, better even. "2D? Do you feel that?" Noodle asked in a whisper. "Feel wot?" I asked.

"The _sun._" I stopped walking, and looked up at the sun, and I felt it. It felt new, I didn't want to stop seeing it, stop feeling it. Why was this place so different? Why could we feel things here? I walked up to the waves and let them run over my feet, I felt the water too. Noodle stepped into the water with me and smiled. "I like it here." she said. I turned and smiled back at her, "Me too."

We plopped down in the sand, away from the tide. And we questioned death, "Why do you think it's just me and you, 2D?" Noodle asked. "And not everybody else?"

"I don't know, love" I said. "Maybe it was because we died together?"

She asked, "But was about hell? Or heaven? Weren't we supposed to go to one of those?"

I chuckled, "Well I don't think you would go to hell, Noodle. Your too nice for that. But maybe, it's because you didn't have much of a life, and you couldn't make many mistakes. As for, me well I don't really know."

"Oh. Well maybe whatever God there is thinks that you've done too much bad for heaven, but your still a good person. So they put us somewhere in between." She said.

"Yeah," I smirked. "Or maybe God thinks I would break their pretty harps and stuff." Noodle laughed. Her laugh chimed through the air like her guitar. It had been so long since I heard her laugh, I missed it.

We sat there, and the world felt right again. It was just me and Noodle. I closed my eyes and fell back into the sand, even though I knew I couldn't sleep. Even if I wanted to. After hours it felt like, Noodle poked my stomach. My eyes snapped open and I lazily looked to Noodle without getting up. She pointed to the horizon and my eyes followed her gaze. There in the distance were two birds, I looked at Noodle, confused.

"Don't you see?" she asked.

"See wot?" I propped myself on my elbows.

"The type." Noodle raised an eyebrow. Something I had tried to do before but just made my head hurt.

I squinted into the distance again, and caught the birds faint color. "No. Wot type are they?" I asked.

"You see the one closer to the back, circling that one?" she pointed. "It's a dove."

I saw them flying closer to us and said, "Oh yeah, and that ones a crow."

"You don't really see them together to much." Noodle mumbled. "Do you think it means something?"

"Wot could it possibly mean? That there's life here?" I asked.

"Well, the crow is considered a bad omen, a symbol of death. But the dove is considered a good omen, a symbol of love. So when you put them together-"

"You get us." I finished.

We didn't say anything after that. Most of this place didn't make much sense, but it didn't seem to matter whether or not we figured this place out. It seemed better left as a mystery. Whether not we stayed here, something about being here gave us hope. Not hope that we would reincarnate or that we weren't the only life here. It was that maybe death wasn't bad after all. It wasn't a suffering ending that we would all have to look forward to, and it wasn't a beautiful place of all the good in the universe. Death was death. There was nothing to it, and whether you wanted it to be good or bad is your own choice.

We didn't choose, though. We went with it as if we were still alive. Life goes on. And so does death.


End file.
